Hello, hello from the city where pants are optional, New Orleans. I gave my talk about anti-Jesuit and anti-Catholic conspiracy theories yesterday, and then we bopped along Canal Street to the Smarti Gras party.

I know that when I need medical advice, I go to a strung-out, obviously intoxicated rapper. I mean, not me, Vigilant Citizen:

How one person decided to let go of reason and embrace the space brothers. I suspect that there is a very good chance that any story that starts, “I was a skeptic,” is being told by someone who wasn’t. Especially when it includes: “The last documentary I watched was a lecture by Linda Moulton-Howe on cattle mutilations. I could not believe what I was seeing. The question in my mind very quickly became not whether UFOs existed – they clearly did – but what they were.” You and skepticism are not even nodding acquaintances.

Artsy NYT writer doesn’t care who wrote Shakespeare. Which is fine. The reason I fuss about it because adopting the conspiracy theory is to reject evidence freely available to anyone with a library card. When you toss out the evidence, you can say whatever you like, and Oxfordian nutters do. But you can’t call that learning or time well spent.

“In London, the Flat Earth Society explains that we live on a giant disk. In Petersburg, Ky., the Creation Museum shows cave men and dinosaurs frolicking together. And in a movie theater near you, “Anonymous,” which opened Friday, reveals how the Earl of Oxford wrote Shakespeare’s plays.”

Why aren’t the sailors on the ship that “tossed Osama bin Laden over the side” talking? Could it be because they are being blackmailed? Or could it be something more sinister, like, it fecking happened?

In additional Shakespeare news, Forbes’s Alex Knapp wrote a piece, “Yes, Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare” and got inundated with…enthusiastic correspondence. He contacted me and Eve about coming up with a reply to the specific claims of Shakespeare deniers, and we’re happy to help. Also, John Orloff, the screenwriter of Anonymous, left a smudge in the comments on my post about his indignation at the HuffPo.

My every waking moment is consumed by CSICon at this point. Currently, I’m looking into the idea of “human hybrids,” whatever the crap those are supposed to be. I mean, hybrids with what? There are, of course, the innumerable human-alien hybridizations, but the guy I’m talking about doesn’t believe that there are such things as aliens. So, hybridized with what? I think that “hybridization” might be a code word for “I don’t understand genetics.” But he does talk about the hybrids’ sterility. God, muddling through the brains of conspiracy theorists is such a muddle. I think that there is a strain of the “medical experimentation” trope in there, but… yeah, that’s not exactly right, either. Oh well.

But enough of my foolish problems. Onto the foolish problems of others!

Everything I’m seeing about the alleged Iranian assassination plot on US soil expresses disbelief–or at least notes that the whole thing defies precedent. NPR noted this, though they are still investigating, even finding a possible motive. The conspiracy theorists have ben wetting themselves over this, accusing the US of orchestrating it, though this seems to be a knee-jerk reaction and not the product of reason applied to evidence. PrisonPlanet says we’ve given Israel the OK to bomb Iran. I mean, there’s no doubt that the coordinated press releases by the Obama Administration across so many departments suggests that this was a coordinated disclosure of info, but they did file charges and have opened themselves to the possibility of being humiliated in open court. Hugo Chavez thinks that the plot was cooked up by the US. I mean, if you can’t trust Hugo Chavez, who can you trust?

Is it strange that I first typed 2003? I mean, it hasn’t been 2003 for, like, at least 5 years.

Anyway, it was a goofy time this week in the conspiracy theory-o-sphere. Or at least, I think it was. You see, my principle data gathering method, the Twitter Android app, was down this week, and I was not able to collect as much as I normally would.

The UN documents describing Project Blue Beam and how the NWO and UN plan to use the actual projection of “indoctrinating holograms” onto the atmosphere itself to create convincing but fraudulent “second coming” imagery are located on my original Wiki and have been hidden there in plain sight for four years. This is the NWO’s most ludicrous, heinous and preposterous plan yet for trying to install a one world government on the unsuspecting people of the world, by employing the ultimate in faked imagery to try to achieve their goals.

That’s all I have, folks. I would have written about some of the Occupy Wall Street protests, but I honestly have no idea what they are about. I mean, yes, they are mad, but what are you advocating? Oh, well. Sorry. I’ll try to be better next time.

Right now I’m writing my presentation for CSICon, and if you follow my twitter feed, you are well aware of this. CSICon has taken precedent over most other things at this point, and I’m gunning to have the entire presentation done well before I go to New Orleans, so I can just plug and play. Well, play mostly.

The program says I’m writing about religious conspiracy theories, which is mostly true. It’s actually going to be about a lot more than just straight religion. As I was writing, I realized that there was a good chance my audience would start thinking, “So the hell what?” as I was writing about a number of anti-Jesuit and anti-Catholic movements in 19th-century. This audience is on the cutting edge of bullshit–they are up on their game and mostly committed to fighting woo, bunk, nonsense and enfeebling thoughts in the here and now. So, I have reengineered my presentation to bring make clear that there is a close continuity between the conspiracy theories of yesteryear and the conspiracy theories of todayyear. In particular, I am going to be looking at the features of these old stories and the features of the more recent stories. And instruct my audience to embrace the FEMA death camps and obey the New World Order. (I know that some of you Truthers are reading this! w00t!)

Basically, I’m going to answer the question, “What does a pillow fight having gone horribly wrong have to do with UFOs?” I’ve taken an especially strange statement given to me by a modern conspiracist and am looking at all the history that led up to someone making such an extreme claim. In doing so, I hope to show that, as much as it appears and no matter how truly gobsmacking this comment was, it was not pulled right out of his probed orifice, but is the end product of immense conspiracist energies spanning decades. I hope that it will fit in nicely with the meme-based explanations that I anticipate from the other panelists, since I will be looking at some of the longest-lived (most enduringly reproductively successful) memes.

I don’t want to spoil it all here right now–not that the people who I will be presenting to are currently readers. (I do hope, though, that some of them will become readers by the end of the conference.)